Not His Father's Son
by MidnightIndigo
Summary: Scorpius Malfoy has a rather unusual worst fear.  Written for the Boggart Challenge on HPFC.


**A/N: This was written for the Boggart Challenge on HPFC, run by Taragh McCarthy. **

**Disclaimer: I am, unfortunately, not JK Rowling, so I don't own Harry Potter. **

"Scorpius, we're going to be late!"

I turned to give Albus Potter a withering look. "Why does she always do that? Blame me, I mean. Somehow when we're late it's always my fault."

Albus smirked. "Because it usually is, mate," he reminded me, as both of us printed to keep up with Rose Weasley.

The bell rang just as we slipped into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Professor Lupin stopped mid-sentence, raising an eyebrow, said eyebrow turning blue as he did so.

"We're not late," I said, panting. If we were marked tardy Rose would murder me so bad. According to Al, she's almost worse than their grandmother.

Teddy Lupin smiled just slightly. "Glad you could make it. Take your seats."

We sat down quickly, grateful.

"As I was saying," Professor Lupin said, standing in front of a large trunk, today we are learning about boggarts."

There was immediately a series of whispering, all around the room, some excited, some terrified, and some just plain confused.

"Now, now, third years, this shouldn't be difficult," he grinned at us. "Now, most of you should know, since you all should've read chapter three for homework last night, what a boggart is. It's goal in life is to scare you and that's about it. Other than fear, you cannot be harmed by it. Now, does anyone know how to repel a boggart?"

Unsurprisingly, Rose's hand shot into the air. Teddy had barely even looked in her direction before she answered, "You think of how to make your worst fear less scary and say, 'Riddikulus!'"

Al and I rolled our eyes at each other.

"Very good, Miss Weasley," he said, always much more formal at school than at home. "Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Do you read ahead in the bloody textbook or something?" I heard Albus whisper to Rose, and she scowled at him. Unlike most people would've, including myself, Al just stared back appraisingly. I mean, I was quaking in my metaphorical boots and she wasn't even looking at me.

"Okay, everybody stand up," Lupin instructed. Once we had, he swept the desks away with one quick movement of his wand. "Everybody, practice with me, get out your wands. Now, together. _Riddikulus!_"

"_Riddikulus!_" we repeated, the whole class in unison.

"Good. Now I want everyone to think of what you are afraid of most, and try to turn it into something funny. Everybody form a line behind Mr. Potter, if you will."

There was a great deal of pushing as the braver ones, the ones with grins on their faces, ran to the front, and the rest scrambled to the back with anxious expressions. Only Albus seemed to stay stock still, eyes trained on the clasp of the trunk with a mixture of the two emotions.

I found myself three behind him, and I started to fret. What was I afraid of? And how did one turn their worst fear into something they could laugh at?

Albus' voice cut through my thoughts. "_Riddikulus!_" he shouted. I jumped—I hadn't realized we'd even started. Albus' threstral turned into a My Little Pony, a toy I recognized from when I'd been over at Albus' house in the middle of first year and his younger sister had carried them around everywhere. Rose approached it, and the pink plastic horse changed again into a creepy old man who I knew to be the Muggle mortician who lived at the end of her street. Her eyes widened in fright as he smiled creepily and raised a shovel, though why he had a shovel I had no idea. He took a step toward her, and that broke the spell. She yelled, "_Riddikulus!_" The man's black clothes turned to yellow and his hair and beard turned into sunflowers, and his shovel turned into a beanstalk stuck into the ground.

Alice Longbottom stepped up and a giant filled the room, and I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out, no small amount of panic clouding out all other thoughts. _I was next._

Alice's giant turned two inches tall and I stumbled forward. I still had no idea what my fear was. Nothing I was scared of could qualify as a worst fear. How could I counter something that I didn't see coming?

The boggart enlarged—it seemed to know exactly what I was afraid of. In a second I was facing down…_me?_

I leapt back onto someone's toe, too startled to apologize. How was this supposed to be scary? I heard muttering behind me but the movement of the boggart held my gaze.

Now that I looked more I realized the boggart was different from me, just slightly. Taller, a thinner face, all black robes rather than my red lined Gryffindor uniform. It wore a tiny smirk, like it knew something I didn't. It put up its hood, slowly, tauntingly, then put a skeleton mask over its eyes, pulling it from nowhere. I heard Lupin mutter, "Scorpius…" but didn't react, entranced as I was. Now the class was silent. The boggart, still sneering from under its mask, pulled its left sleeve up, a black tattoo revealed on the inner forearm, a tattoo I'd seen on my father's arm many times, a skull with a snake winding out of its leering mouth.

"No," I whispered. "NO!"

But he pulled out my wand and aimed it at me, hissing, "_Avada Kedavra!_"

The last thing I saw was Teddy darting forward, yelling, "NO!" before the green spell hit and everything looked black.

I heard people talking and felt a throbbing pain in my stomach. Wasn't all pain supposed to stop when you died? I thought again. Was I even dead?

I blinked and looked around. Al and Rose were sitting on either side of me but looking towards Professor Lupin and Madam Pomfrey, who were standing near the doors, discussing something quietly. I was in the hospital wing.

I saw the two adults glance towards me, and Madam Pomfrey immediately hurried towards my bed, leaving Teddy to cut off mid-sentence and follow her.

Al and Rose looked at me in surprise. A smile lit onto Al's face and Rose threw her arms around my neck.

"Oh, Merlin, Scorp, I'd thought you'd died!"

Madam Pomfrey pried her off of me. "Mr. Malfoy is fragile right now."

"I'm not fragile," I protested, though after a few years I knew it was futile. "What happened? I don't understand."

Teddy stood at the foot of the bed. "I've never seen a boggart do anything like that. You have an interesting fear, Mr. Malfoy."

"I didn't…I really didn't get it," Rose said cautiously.

I stared down at the sheets. No one said anything, until Rose finally mumbled, "Sorry."

"It didn't have a wand and therefore couldn't actually give you a Killing Curse, but the curse was an extension of the boggart itself and it disabled you, just as it intended. The goal of the boggart is self-defense, and it will keep itself alive by any means."

As the reality of what had happened sunk in, heat rose to my face. Teddy watched me for a moment, before he said, "Al, Rose, you can go to your next class." They both opened their mouths to protest but he said, "No arguments." He quickly wrote out an excused slip for them. "Give this to Hagrid, though I doubt he'd even care very much. Go on," he prompted when neither of them moved. They reluctantly took off to Care of Magical Creatures, glancing back at me as they turned the corner.

Once they'd left Teddy surveyed me. "Just because your dad was a Death Eater doesn't mean he's still a bad person. And it certainly doesn't mean you're going to go bad. You're a Gryffindor, remember?" He grinned at me half-heartedly. He could tell it wasn't working. "If you don't believe me, go talk to Professor Longbottom."

I didn't say anything, and he added, "Seriously, right now, go talk to him. He doesn't have a class right now. I mean it."

I looked at him in surprise, then looked towards Madam Pomfrey at the cupboard. "Yes, you may leave, Mr. Malfoy."

I got out of bed slowly, wincing. My abdomen still hurt slightly. I lifted my shirt—there was a gauze over a large bruise.

"That'll heal in a bit," Teddy informed me. "Come on, off to the greenhouses." He turned to talk to the nurse and I left without a word.

I reached the greenhouses and wandered through each to find Professor Longbottom. Professor Longbottom was easily my favorite teacher, since Herbology was my best subject (for a variety of reasons, there was this whole thing first year…but that's another story). I was allowed in practically any part of the greenhouses, even the dangerous ones that not even the seventh years used, only Professor Longbottom. I passed a plant and a tendril reached out to catch my shoulder. I paused to smile at it. "Hey, there, Diablo," I told the Devil's Snare. "I've got to talk to the professor." It cuddled up to my cheek and then released me to walk back into Professor Longbottom's office. "Professor!" I called merrily, bursting right in. Professor Longbottom looked over with a grin, but I'd noticed he wasn't alone.

"Elyse!" I exclaimed, rushing over to hug her. Elyse Dursley was short and blond, with green eyes like Al's.

"Hey, Scorp!" she replied. Elyse had graduated the year before I'd started but she'd come back when I was a first year—because of me admittedly—and she was also spectacular at Herbology.

"What are you doing down here, Scorpius? Don't you have class?" Professor Longbottom asked.

"I sort of…I collapsed in Defense Against the Dark Arts, we were facing boggarts, Professor Lupin told me to come down here and to have the day off. He said you could tell me…about my dad."

He frowned and leaned forward. "Why? What was the boggart?"

I explained, slightly ashamed to be telling my failures to two accomplished, adult wizards. Professor Longbottom nodded thoughtfully, but Elyse frowned. "I don't get it."

"Scorpius' worst fear is that he will turn into his father," he explained, so I didn't have to. Then he turned back to me. "Listen, Scorpius, until the Battle of Hogwarts I thought your entire family was the biggest bunch of gits I'd ever met. It wasn't until Harry told me that Narcissa had saved us all that my opinion started to change. I used to hate your father. Believe me, he was a nasty little kid. But after the war he realized what he'd been doing wrong. He might have a tattoo, but he was never able to be a true Death Eater." He grinned. "Besides, you're in Gryffindor, aren't you?"

"Peter Pettigrew was in Gryffindor," I reminded him.

"That's true," Elyse pointed out.

Professor Longbottom glared at her. "You aren't helping."

"Right." She put her hands on my shoulders. "Listen, Scorp, you're a Gryffindor, a _true_ Gryffindor. You're not going to go evil. You've got good supportive friends, you've got use, you've got all your plants out there," she gestured to the series of greenhouses, and I smiled in spite of myself; only the three of us would talk about plants as friends.

"Here, Scorpius, do you want to help me? You can prune Diablo." He held out a pair of pruning scissors.

"Really? Awesome!" I grabbed the scissors out of his hand and went to prune the plants, both of them chortling as I left.

Elyse walked with me up to Professor Lupin's office. She knocked on the door and gave me an encouraging grin. Teddy opened the door. "Hey—oh, hey, Elyse!" He hugged her in greeting; they'd graduated the same year. "What's up?"

"I want to try again," I told him.

He stared at me for a moment, then nodded. "Come in." We stepped inside and he led us to the trunk. "You're positive you want to do this, Scorp?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Okay." He held his hands over the clasps, still watching me. Elyse gave my shoulder a squeeze then stepped back. "Ready?"

I nodded again, my wand ready in front of me. He opened the clasp and out came me once again.

I glared at it, imagining myself sitting with my friends, perfectly fine. Not a Death Eater. Not my father—or what he used to be.

"_Riddikulus!_"

**A/N: A little Scorpius love here, hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading and don't forget to let me know what you thought! (: **

**-Indy**


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